


Rest for the Non-Wicked

by Flobbergasted



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Dreams, Episode: s03e20 The Angel of San Bernardino, Episode: s03e21 Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better, F/M, Gen, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26428039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flobbergasted/pseuds/Flobbergasted
Summary: Lucifer’s dreams have been all too vivid lately. And he still can’t get his damned wings under total control.Just a little missing scene between 3x20 (“The Angel of San Bernardino”) and 3x21 (“Anything Pierce Can Do, I Can Do Better”) in which the Devil incarnate finally catches up on a week’s worth of avoided sleep. And in that sleep of sleeps, what dreams may come…
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	Rest for the Non-Wicked

Lucifer barely remembered driving home after confronting Pierce, giddy as he was with sleep deprivation and the gleeful thought that he’d never have to see Pierce’s smug face and vacant expression on this plane of existence ever again. The lights of Los Angeles sped by as if singing his manic relief back to him, blurring in his vision, and his week-long restlessness buzzed beneath his skin, finally beginning to catch up with him in a delirious haze. He nearly avoided two fender benders before ultimately parking safely—if crookedly—in the underground garage below Lux and taking the elevator back up to his penthouse.

Thankfully, the doors opened on a silent, empty apartment; Mazikeen had made herself scarce after proudly confessing her traitorous actions. Lucifer felt his wrath flaring up when he recalled her words but couldn’t be bothered to argue with his tired and aching body, which seemed to have taken things in hand and was removing his jacket and keening toward the bedroom. The sight of his bed was a welcome one, and he let the jacket slip to the floor along with all thoughts of Maze’s due punishment. Foregoing all routines—silk sleepwear, a nightcap or four—Lucifer crashed onto the bed and quickly dropped into Dreamland.

And dream he did. What he’d told Dr. Martin had been true: his dreams were coming hard and fast these days. Did humans normally dream so vividly? There was no way to be sure his experience was normal, not being a normal human himself, despite his increasingly frequent brushes with mortality. (What was that saying about culture, again? – a fish can’t understand water because that’s all it’s ever known?) In any case, Lucifer slept so deeply, and for so long, that it was like being underwater in its own way—his sleep a cool dark pool where flecks of light danced fleetingly from somewhere above, and shadows waxed and waned, and sound was pleasantly muffled.

And in that sleep of sleeps he dreamed of his wings. What else? The blasted things, he couldn’t shake them even in unconsciousness, and he still had such little control over them.

* * *

In the dream, Lucifer stands on the beach, as he has done before and will do again, gazing out upon the sparkling ocean where he’d first risen from the depths of Hell and waded toward a new kind of life among Creation. He wears no shoes in the dream, and he feels the warm sand beneath his rooted feet, between each of his planted toes. The sky shines blindingly with omnipresent sunlight. He watches the waves as they roll toward him on the shore, feeling somehow that each wave he counts cleanses him of one of his mistakes, washes away one of his misdeeds, before each crashes into the water again to become one with the wide sea.

And the Detective is standing beside him, now. Her black boots and their concealed pistol have come to rest beside his bare feet. Her black trousers and dark blazer cut the blinding light, and Lucifer keenly feels her steady presence. Chloe’s cherubic eyes look up at him with awe and fear and—hope, it seems, and something else he doesn’t dare name, even in the world of dreams. He turns to face her, and before he can stop it from happening, before he even knows it’s happening, his glorious white wings—yes, he can admit they are glorious, and mighty and sure—they spread wide and stretch fiercely and come down swiftly to enfold Chloe. His arms have nowhere to go but around her as the wings shut them in, bringing the two of them flush, enveloping them together.

 _She’s seen my wings!_ is all he can think—and it reverberates in his dream lungs, and echoes throughout the dream sky—and he submits to the panic. The tension of the dream increases, as though his heart actually pounds, as though his breath actually comes short, as though sweat beads on his actual brow.

The wings keep Chloe tightly within an embrace she didn’t choose. The two of them stand chest to chest in the small space—are his wings a shelter, or a trap? Are they a refuge, or a jail cell?

Lucifer can’t see the expression on Chloe’s ethereal face, since she’s crushed so close to his frame now. All he can see is the top of her head, her hair glimmering golden in the divine light. Is she frightened? Is she daunted? Is she horrified?

(“They’re gorgeous,” Chloe had said, long ago, when she’d seen his wings at auction. And they hadn’t even been the real thing. And she’d hardly known him then.)

And there is nowhere left for him to go, but there is nowhere else he wants to be. They stand still and silent, yet he feels he is soaring. His hands, somewhere amongst the downy walls, have not been idle, moving to touch her back, her neck, her hair. She is a pillar of strength and he keeps hold. And his mouth—where is his mouth? It grazes her forehead, and her hair, and he rests his chin on her head, and he feels her smoothness through his stubble as she pulls back and opens her full lips, as if to ask _how?_ Or _why?_ Or _what are you?_

Heart still racing, Lucifer begins to feel the sensation of falling. His knees grow weak, the pressure within him seems to drop suddenly, and he buckles. He clings to Chloe, an anchor. The more he fights the feeling, the faster the world turns upside-down. He can still feel the sand under his feet, and he still senses the surf crashing against the nearby shore, but the unexpected swooping in his belly discombobulates him, and he knows he is again—for the second time in Eternity—the Fallen One.

His wings are powerful, and the power can not be denied. His wings are gentle and precise, and they are soft and bright and delicate. The feathers on their tips caress his own arms and shoulders as they engulf him completely, and they caress Chloe’s cheeks as they continue to surround her. Everything is soft—and so warm—and tender—and suffocating—and he’s glad to suffocate—he gives in—and he clings to the hope that Chloe can still breathe.

* * *

When Lucifer awakened to the sound of an incoming text message from the Detective herself—the body of a dancer had been found at a theater—he breathed deeply, and deeply again as he tried to right himself, tried to come back to the present reality. The dream’s sensations were still with him, even as its details began to slip away. His wings were wrapped around him, and sleeping with his weight on them had made them a bit sore; they twinged as he tucked them away to let the light of the morning into what had been a personal cocoon.

As he rolled out of bed and headed toward the shower, he felt a generalized thankfulness (definitely not directed at The Man Upstairs) for the distraction of the new case. Lucifer didn’t want to think about what it was going to take to help Chloe put the whole engagement debacle behind her and bring her focus back to him—and then there was Maze to deal with—and his blasted wings were still there, even if it turned out he hadn’t been sleep-flying after all.

His dream stayed with him as he massaged the tense muscles of his shoulders and neck under the spray and breathed in the hot steam.

The dreams all stay with him, now, for days at a time.

* * *

The morning was bright, the theater and its mystery were beckoning. Back in his right mind, Lucifer was glad to see Chloe. She looked a bit downtrodden but still beautiful and tough and determined. He was glad when she said she didn’t want to talk about her split with Pierce; all Lucifer wanted was to put Pierce behind them as soon as possible and get back to where they’d been before everything had gone pear-shaped.

His hopes were soon dashed, of course: Pierce rode up on his hog and immediately confessed his purported love to Chloe.

At least—Lucifer forced himself to think calm thoughts—at least he was caught up on sleep now, so he had the self restraint not to flay Cain where he stood, for once and for all, which was good because that would have probably set Chloe off. Instead, however irked and baffled he felt, Lucifer stepped out of Chloe’s way and made himself let her get on with things, in whatever manner she chose.

**Author's Note:**

> Theological fact(s), just for fun! 
> 
> There is a tradition in the Bahá’í Faith involving counting waves as a way of meditating upon one’s misdeeds and becoming free from them (though the tradition makes particular reference to the waves on the shore of the Middle Eastern city of Akká, a.k.a. Akko, or Acre, in modern-day Israel. Akka is a central place of pilgrimage for Bahá’ís because the resting place of the Faith’s Prophet-Founder lies just outside the city walls). This tradition and its symbolism are somewhat unique, since neither confession nor baptism nor the concept of original sin have any place in Bahá’í theology, which declares that all human beings have been created “noble,” and precludes confession and baptism—and most every kind of ritual—by stating that the individual is responsible for their own spiritual life (not to mention the fact that there are no clergy). The tradition is noted in sacred text as follows:
> 
> “The Apostle of God [Muḥammad]—may the blessings of God and His salutations be upon Him—hath also said: ‘… he that counteth forty waves, while repeating: “God is Most Great!”—exalted be He—God will forgive his sins, both past and future.’ … Verily, the Apostle of God—may the blessings of God, exalted be He, and His salutations be upon Him—hath spoken the truth.”  
> —Bahá’u’lláh (in _Epistle to the Son of the Wolf_ )


End file.
